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The 3-Year Crusade: Chapter 1
Author's Notes: Hey fellow readers. For now, development on Nabriho'ulbon's World has been halted. I sent a friend a request on something I want to put in chapter 10, and I'm gonna give them some time to respond. In the meantime, I'm gonna be using this spare time to finally work on this idea I kept in my mind for what seams like a long time. This is going to be a bit different from what I normally do. It's not going to be a Troll Fic like Nabriho'ulbon's World; this is going to be my first attempt at a dramatic Crack Fic. I'm going to be treating development on this fanfiction like I'm writing an actual novel. Over the course of development, I'm gonna be contacting other writers for feedback on certain chapters. Therefore, edits will be much more than simple grammar corrections like with Nabriho'ulbon's World; they might include rewording sentences, deleting unnecessary details, or changing certain events in the story. Anyways, that's enough of the author's notes. I hope you enjoy reading through this and once you're done, please leave a review on the talk page. Also of important notice, this takes place in an AU(Alternate Universe) where all four members of SoaD are single and their kids IRL don't exist, but nearly everything else about them is the same; Serj is still the founder of Kavat Coffee, Serjical Strike Records, and Axis of Justice(the latter alongside Tom Morello), Daron is still the founder of Scars on Broadway, Shavo's still the founder of 22Red, and John's still the founder of Torpedo Comics. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time: 9:00 P.M. September 11th 2019. Location: Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. One dark night, the silence of a quaint street in Hollywood, was broken with the sound of a car speeding down the road. The car in question, a red SUV, was constantly switching between the left and right sides of the road, leaving skid marks all over it. From behind, people inside apartment buildings were waking up and turning on the lights in their rooms, with a few of them even opening the windows to see what was with all the ruckus in the otherwise calm street. Inside the car was Daron Malakian, who was gripping tightly onto the wheel, turning it in different directions in an attempt to refocus the car while his bloodshot eyes constantly shifted focus between the road and the inside of the car. This was a lot more challenging than it sounded; the car would either barely move an inch, or almost completely turn in the direction of the wheel regardless of how much it was turned, and the brake was not functioning at all, so the car was just gradually speeding up. Deep within his subconscious, his mind was filled with thoughts, orders, and unanswered questions. Why is this happening? Just then, the car was speeding straight into a lamp post on the sidewalk and Daron made another swift turn. The turn caused him to be flung over to the car door, due to the loose seat belt. Daron then quickly repositioned himself onto the middle of the seat and looked back up at the window. In the near distance was another lamp post on a sidewalk. He swiftly looked to the left and right of the lamp post, however there was no continuation of the road. This was a dead end. Daron then went into panic, sweat started to drip from his face as his thoughts devolved into an abyss of confusion. A couple coherent thoughts were eventually dug out of the sea of thoughts and He quickly pushed down on the break, to no avail. He then tightened his grip on the wheel and made an attempt to turn the car around 180 degrees, however the wheel didn't budge; it was stuck in place. He then looked up at the road, where the lamp post was getting closer as the car drew near. Just when he thought this would be his demise, an idea popped into his head; it was a risky one, but it was either that, or risk suffocation from the airbag, if the crash itself didn't kill him. He unbuckled himself then unlocked and flung the car door open, the wind rapidly passing by outside due to the speed of the car. He peered outside at the sidewalk in front of him, then with little hesitation, he jumped out of the car. Inside a nearby house, Serj Tankian was calmly sitting at a plain wooden table. With a cup of coffee in one hand, and a pen in the other, he was writing down some song lyrics on a sheet of paper with a light smile on his face. The entire house was in a state of silence, all electronics off and nothing else better to do; the timing couldn't have been more perfect for this moment. He placed the tip of the pen down on the paper and wrote down a line of lyrics, his eyes focused on the words to check for any spelling errors and after seeing none, he lowered the pen below the line and wrote another. While he was writing the words down, he kept a clear vision of the song's concept in mind; a song about a glimmer of light after a moment of tragedy, a savior descended from the heavens, a fragment of hope. Once he had finished writing down the words, he placed his pen down and took a sip of his coffee when suddenly, a loud crash erupted from outside. The sound caused the cup to shake, and some of the coffee spilled onto the paper, completely rendering all progress made up to that point redundant. However, with the desire to find the answer to what was and the cause of the sound, there was no time to go back and rewrite everything on a different sheet and Serj immediately hopped out of his seat and flung the front door to his house open. He turned his head to the side and gasped to find where a red SUV had crashed into a lamp post. He squinted at the driver's plate and immediately recognized the car as Daron's, since this was the car he always drove to the studio in. Contrary to what most System of a Down fans thought, he was actually quite a decent driver and chill person, in contrast to his persona on stage. Very rarely did he do anything rambunctious offstage and even then, it never involved anything relating to property damage. He was about to rush over to the car, believing that Daron was inside, until he heard a weak moan from behind. He swiftly turned his head and gasped to a grisly sight. On the sidewalk laid Daron in a state of agonizing pain, a kind of pain with nothing to hide. His clothes were tattered beyond recognition, leaving holes of various sizes which displayed the parts of his body that were coated in a layer of bright red, which was most apparent on the lower half of his body. His legs were affected the most; starting with the knees, about 75% of the legs were almost entirely bright red, its original color now almost nowhere to be found, and blood was leaking out from thin gashes in the knees. Serj immediately dashed over to his suffering friend and bent down to his face. "Daron! Are you feeling alright?!?" Asked Serj, in a concerned tone with a tint of desperation. "uuuuuhhhh...Serj?" groaned Daron as he slightly turned his head up towards Serj's. "Hold on, let me get a closer look at you." Serj bent his legs further down as he got a look at the knees, which were still somewhat flowing with blood. He noticed however, that the bleeding was happening at a moderate pace and didn't seem as severe as he first thought. Just to be sure, he further observed his body and sure enough, there were no visible muscles, bones, or debris. Serj let out a faint sigh of relief, knowing that although the injuries left quite the mark, they were not and wouldn't be fatal as long as proper treatment was given. "Am I alright...?" Daron asked in faint concerned tone. "Yes. I just need to take you inside for further treatment." Serj nodded as he placed his arms around his friend and lifted his scarred body off the ground. He walked back over to the door of his house and opened it with his left hand, pushing the door open a bit before moving his hand back to hold his friend. He stepped inside his house, which Daron noticed had a feeling of warmth, like a fireplace on a cold night. Serj laid him down on the soft couch and ran off to another room as Daron turned to face the inactive TV, its screen completely black. He noticed the remote on an end table near where his feet were resting on the right leg of the couch. he sat up for a moment to grab the remote then promptly laid back down and turned the TV on. The TV then played a cooking channel, something which he didn't really care that much about, so he stationed one of his fingers onto the up arrow of the channels button and started pressing it several times, with several of the channels coming and going off the screen being generic, cookie-cutter nature shows and documentaries. Finally, he took his finger off the button when he came across a channel featuring Satyricon playing live on Rockpalast back in 2018. He faintly smiled as he watched Satyr sing with his left hand raised up while Frost played on the drums in his signature fast-paced style and the other four people with them provided the guitars, the keys, and bass. Suddenly, Serj walked into the room, holding medical equipment he got from the bathroom. He stepped over towards Daron, fully aware of the black metal playing in the background at a volume that he could hear far back in the bathroom, but not minding it too much; His ears had grown used to the times when Daron would listen to his friends' music backstage after a performance and besides, there were more important things on his mind. "It's best that you sit up for this Daron. It'll be hard for me to focus with you laying like that." Serj lightly asked him, trying not to sound too harsh while also adding a layer of cruciality to his tone. He obliged without a second thought and repositioned himself to where he was now sitting vertically on the couch, where Serj stood right in front of him. Serj decided that it would be best to start with the knees, so that he wouldn't have to worry about cleaning much dry blood later on. He bent down to his legs, directly facing the knees, and lightly pulled up the two holes in his jeans a bit further, revealing the entire length of all the gashes. Meanwhile, Daron proceeded with his earlier activity and continued watching the performance of his longtime friends, trying to ignore what happened previously and keep in mind his anticipation to hopefully see them tomorrow. His bandmate then pressed onto the gashes with his wet small towel, causing him to flinch at the sudden icy pressure being placed on his knees, alongside slight pain as said pressure caused a bit of blood to leak out. "It's gonna be okay, Daron." informed Serj as soon as he felt his friend flinch. "It'll be over soon." Daron took note of that and continued staring at the TV, still feeling the slight pain in his knees, but trying his best to ignore it. After a little while, the song that was playing concluded and shortly after, Serj pulled the small towel away from the knees and placed his hands around them. He noticed rather quickly that there was no longer any blood leaking out, and now he just had to add the ointment and bandages, and then move on to the other areas for further treatment. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small container of Bacitracin, then removed the lid and squirted a small amount onto two of his fingers. He then lightly placed his fingers onto one of the knees and spread the ointment across it while Daron watched the commercials that were now playing on the television. He finished up spreading the ointment, then he squirted another small amount of it on his hand, before repeating the process on the other knee. During this part of the process, Daron couldn't help but place the palm of his hand under his chin out of boredom. To him, the worst part about an injury was not the pain that came with it, but rather, the amount of time he had to wait for said pain to just end already. With not much really going on at the moment, and the TV now being of little interest to him, all he could do was dwell on the only thing currently happening and wait for its inevitable, but tedious end. And soon, end it did, that part anyways. With the first half of fixing up the knees complete, Serj now had to apply the bandages, and after that, rinse and repeat those two steps for the rest of the body. He reached into his other pocket and pulled out a couple unopened boxes of Band-Aids. Due to the large portion of scarred skin, gauze would've made a significantly better alternative, however he didn't have any. He was completely unprepared for this moment and the only reason he had Bacitracin was because he bought it for a friend whose house had recently burned down, leaving said friend with minor burns. Since house fires were starting to become quite common recently, he greatly overestimated the severity of his friend's burns and bought several tubes of Bacitracin, and when he learned that the burns were only minor, he ended up giving his friend one and kept the rest. Needless to say, he was glad that mother earth had given him the chance to use one of them, ensuring that his purchase was not a complete waste of her resources. "Um, Daron, I must inform you that, this part may take a while, but please don't get too impatient, okay?" Serj informed his friend. He was really hesitant about having to tell him that, and even getting the words out hurt him a bit. He was fully aware of Daron's tendencies of getting a bit impatient after a while. In between performances after a song was over, Daron would often fiddle around with whatever was closest to him and was almost always the first one to start conversations. For him, the most common thing he would discuss would be about the preceding performance and how he felt about how it went. If any complications suddenly arose during this interval, Daron would always be the first to respond to it, almost immediately picking up one of his guitars and rehearsing out of impatience, though said complications were quite rare. "Okay then, I guess..." Daron sighed back, with a slight but noticeable tint of frustration in his voice, to the fulfillment of Serj's prediction. To Daron, this was great news, exactly what he wanted to hear. He really enjoyed not having anything to do, and he was absolutely enthusiastic about the news that he would have to endure the lack of distractions for god knows how long. His sarcastic thoughts provided little aid for his frustration, if any. To be fair, he couldn't really blame Serj for this. He knew that he couldn't really be blamed for the crash or the injuries; that would be a complete defiance of common sense. He was just a friend trying to help the best he could, even if he could provide little aid to Daron's impatience. Just then however, what at first seemed like a miracle for his boredom happened. The commercials went off and another show started playing. Being that this was just the beginning of another performance, Daron would still have to wait a little bit for the show to begin, but he didn't care. At least he now had something of slight interest to take his mind off the procedure he was going through. As seconds, Daron hyped himself for the moment, for the moment of truth, for whatever the band was to walk up that stage and show the crowd what they had. He only had to wait a few seconds before two men walked up onto the stage, one towards the keyboards and for the other the drums. For the former, Daron could've sworn for a moment that he saw that face somewhere, but with the TV being a distance away from the couch, farther than what he was used to, he could only guess as to the identity of the man for now. The screen then cut to a bird's eye view of the crowd gathered around the stage, said crowd no doubt more than hundreds or thousands of people. Immediately upon site of such a crowd, a spark of nostalgia lit up in his mind. It had only been slightly more than two years, and the imagery of the 2017 tour retained a strong presence in his mind, the sounds of the crowd's cheers, the screams they unleashed in response to the occasional bit of insanity either during a song or an in-between, the reflections of the numerous lights from behind, the chance to re-live that again was something that Daron held on a pedestal of impatience higher than anything else. The nostalgia was enough to cloud him from the feeling of Serj slowly applying a handful of bandages onto the knees, almost completely covering them. That may have only took a few, but Serj knew full well that by the end, he would've went through about two entire boxes for the lower area. *Fanfic under Construction* Category:Fanfiction